PLEASE HELP... angelfish swimming corkscrew??

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AngelFishGirl

AngelFishGirl

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
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My angelfish was LITERALLY swimming in a corkscrew motion all around the tank for ten minutes.

I put him in a net after recording a video so he wouldn't hurt himself... And all of the sudden he straightened out and was fine??
It was right after eating if that means anything.

I'm trying to upload the video and it's not working. I'll continue trying. But please help!!

Parameters are all normal and I've never seen it happen before!
 
img_3053922_0_22a86ddff98e7f714766b74a5e5633c4.mp4
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I've never seem that happen before...:eek: what do you normally few him?


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
If he/ she straightened out and is swimming normally, he/she may have collided with another fish while trying to feed which knocked the fish "silly" which was why the erratic swimming movements. However, "whirling" is a known disease that effects fish and is usually caused by an internal parasite. The fish don;t recover from this without medication so you need to be sure that your fish has RECOVERED and is back to "normal" and this was just a 1 time thing. Should the fish continue to whirl, you would be best to treat the fish in a separate tank with metronidazole to try to kill the parasite and hopefully save the fish. HOWEVER, if you notice this behavior in any other fish, you will need to treat all the fish in the tank and it is suggested to remove all the fish to a hospital tank and break down the infected tank and sterilize with bleach. It is also recommended to use a UV sterilizer on the tank when yu return the fish to the tank to help control any free swimming spores that may come from the fish before they infect any other fish. So you need to be really sure that the fish in question has recovered.
 
I feed Omega One tropical flakes. And thanks! No one has done anything and it was just a one time thing. He and the others are perfectly fine :) it seemed his top fin was "bent"? My boyfriend observed, so that possibly threw him off balance, but either way after holding him still in the net, he recovered and was fine again. So scary!
 
AngelFishGirl said:
I feed Omega One tropical flakes. And thanks! No one has done anything and it was just a one time thing. He and the others are perfectly fine :) it seemed his top fin was "bent"? My boyfriend observed, so that possibly threw him off balance, but either way after holding him still in the net, he recovered and was fine again. So scary!
Click to expand...

That's good to hear however, you should be extra vigilant with your fish now and if you see this again, don;t think it will remedy itself "like the last time" but take it as a sign that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed.
I doubt a bent fin caused this as fish swim normally with bent fins all the time. That fish looked dazed while it was swimming possibly having a stroke or some other neurological issue that was causing the imbalance. You'll never know for sure without an autopsy and hopefully, ;) it will be a long time before you can even do one of those. (y)
 
My albino cory did that once - i hooked him out and put him a glass on tank water so he wouldn't get eaten by someone else if he popped his clogs and did a 75% water change just in case I;d got something wrong with my water. He then started to look a bit better and I stuck him back in the tank and he's been right as rain ever since!

Sometimes you are sure a fish is on its way out and it miraculously comes back to life...and sometimes you come home - feed your hungry zebra danios as usual and an hour later 2 of them are dead for no apparent reason...
 
Could be velvet, that causes "whirling" too, but its easy to observe, try an ick treatment for the whole tank.
Andy, have you had any sucess with treating bacterial/protozoan Septima?
My guppies have this, got it from some wild guppies that came with a suprise, now all my guppies got it. I tried Mentraidazole, but innefective, tried prazipro, innefective.
Ive given up on these fancy meds and going back to my old staple, Terramycin and methylene, pretty sure THAT will work for Septima caused by internal bacteria, especially if admin. via feed and used with the M. Blue for 7-10 days. Its listed for that, and ive had sucess in the past with that. Whats your Preferred method of treatment for this "whirling flat belly" type of disease that is NOT caused by velvet or flukes or worms?
 
Matt68005 said:
Could be velvet, that causes "whirling" too, but its easy to observe, try an ick treatment for the whole tank.
Andy, have you had any sucess with treating bacterial/protozoan Septima?
My guppies have this, got it from some wild guppies that came with a suprise, now all my guppies got it. I tried Mentraidazole, but innefective, tried prazipro, innefective.
Ive given up on these fancy meds and going back to my old staple, Terramycin and methylene, pretty sure THAT will work for Septima caused by internal bacteria, especially if admin. via feed and used with the M. Blue for 7-10 days. Its listed for that, and ive had sucess in the past with that. Whats your Preferred method of treatment for this "whirling flat belly" type of disease that is NOT caused by velvet or flukes or worms?
Click to expand...
Truthfully, I've never known velvet to cause a whirling reaction as it's an external parasite. Fish tend to scratch with velvet plus it's visable by the dusty appearance but new diseases are popping up all the time so I can't say it's impossible.
What I noticed in the video was the fish's eyes. They looked dazed and the pupils seemed fixed and a little dilated which is why I believe the fish was having a neurological event. Granted, it's only a guess that can be supported by autopsy but since the fish recovered ( as per the OP) I doubt it was disease that caused this.

As for treating internal diseases, the 2 best meds I know of that are still available are kanamycin and maracyn 2 (minocycline). These treat internal, mostly gram- bacteria. If you are dealing with a parasite causing condition that is not responding to metronidazole or praziquantal ( either individually or used together as in API's General Cure), you may want to try Fenbendazole which is a dewormer for tropical fish. I have not needed to use Fenbendazole so I am only going by an article I read where the aquarist had tried multiple meds to cure camallanus worms and this was finally the cure. In the past, I treated my fish with isonizid in their food when they first came in so they were being treated for internal issues before they became an issue. I don;t believe it's available anymore. I rarely had to cure fish of internal issues as good water and tank conditions can keep them from happening or keep the fish healthy enough to combat them themselves. In my experience, most fish that had a case of septicemia had come from foul water ( mainly during shipping) and we treated with nitrofurazone and clean water.


Hope this helps (y)
 
Ya man, might try that fenabazole whatever, this started last summer when some guy on AB sold me some wild guppies. He lived in KC and i live in Omaha, and he got them from AdrianHD, so i figured it would be O.K.
WRONG! This guy not only ripped me off, (one had bent spine, was one female short, and several males were very skinny looking) but now a year later i finally got the disease under control somewhat, hell i don't even know what it was ive tried so many diffrent things, and then today my male guppy just up and croaks! They have stringy poo and their bellies are bloated, the reason i say septima is because the male i put him in a goldfish bowl before his passing and his belly looked a little red and hollow. Ive tried prazipro, mentraidazole, dissolved seasalt + rid ich +86 deg F, nothing seems to work. So today after he died (He was a really nice young Male of my green cobra line and his cadual was huge, im so mad at that guy still!) resorted to the Oxytetracycline and dosed everything with Methylene, i dont know what else to do. I finally just got rid of the sickly feeder guppies and im soaking the buckets, nets and pump siphon in hot water and M. Blue to try and just get rid of this thing once and for all. Its really frustrating when you know how to take care of fish but you have bad luck caused by some guy who knew he was ripping you off, and ends up getting all of your fish sick. Lets hope this will be the end of it, i really think its bacterial septima, a parasite would be dead by now i think, and i know mentroidazole only covers a few types of bacteria. sigh
 
Bloated belly and stringy "poo" sounds like a constipation issue which you might try Epsom salt (it's magnesium not sodium) or an Epsom salt bath if the other fish start to show this. I recently had an issue of white poo with an Angelfish and started (too late unfortunately) the API general cure and Epsom salt and the dead worms started flushing out of her. She never was bloated, still ate ( only smaller amounts as the condition worsened)and the only symptom was the stringy poo. As I said, I medicated too late ( I don;t have a LFS close by) and I lost her about 10 days later. But this is how we learn and move on so it doesn;t happen the next time. All my new fish in the future, no matter where they come from, will be treated for internal issues upon arrival. ;)
I hate to say it but even tho the internet gives us bigger choices of fish to buy, I won;t get fish sight unseen. I'll drive hundreds of miles to see the fish if I have to. But that's me. ;)
Just an FYI, The Tetracycline group primarily works against gram + bacteria but most internal issues are gram - which is why Kanamycin or maracyn 2 might be better choices as they are absorbed through the skin so the fish will be getting treatment even if they are not eating.

Hope this helps. "thumb:
 
So almost a month later he's doing it again... Much worse this time. Could it really be this incurable horrible "whirling disease" I'm reading about?? Is the only option euthanasia????
 
Edit: he is no longer swimming in a whirling motion but is swimming mostly head down unable to control his movement of his body. Videos are on the way
 
Delapool said:
Hi Andy, any chance you could post the link? Cheers
Click to expand...

I post this only as a courtesy as this disease is not very common and I have never seen it in Angelfish before or heard of it being in any Angelfish strain. There are other diseases that Angels are known to carry which are what most people are dealing with. I would not want to start a panic or be the source of misdiagnoses of curable disease that Angelfish get. So I suggest you read the info as informational data only. You need to read it all because there are clues in many parts of the article that help diagnose this disease and how to deal with it. Keep in mind that the fish on the video is NOT showing the described symptoms of "Whirling Disease" as per this article but is just "Twirling" around the tank. This is different from whirling disease.

And with that, Happy reading ;).... Whirling Disease Initiative - FAQs
 
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